Underground gas storage plays an important role in supporting Britain’s energy security.

We recently consulted on whether any government action is needed to maintain gas security of supply across the energy transition, including possible measures to support current and potential new UK gas storage operators.

The government will publish its response to the Gas Security in Transition consultation in due course.

Once introduced, Transitional Energy Certificates may be issued to manage incidental production of petroleum from offshore activities including gas storage, hydrogen storage and carbon dioxide storage. Further detail on the application process and eligibility will be set out through legislation and subsequent guidance from the North Sea Transition Authority.

The government is supporting private investment in long duration electricity storage (LDES) through the LDES cap and floor policy, which is being delivered by Ofgem. This will deliver the first LDES projects in Great Britain for over four decades.

On 26 June 2026, Ofgem published minded-to decisions for the first LDES application window, supporting 16 projects totalling 7.6GW of power and 137GWh of storage capacity.

The government’s Clean Flexibility Roadmap Update of 13 July 2026 contains further details on steps to deliver LDES, as well as other forms of energy storage such as hydrogen storage and power.

The Energy Independence Bill has now been announced in the King’s Speech. The Bill will legislate for the powers the government needs to fight people’s corner and go further and faster on the government’s clean energy mission. The Bill will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The government published further information on its approach to the criteria for Transitional Energy Certificates on 21 April.

The Energy Independence Bill was announced in the King’s Speech, in which the government committed to manage existing oil and gas fields for their lifetime and show climate leadership by meeting the manifesto commitments.

Following the conclusion of the legislative process, the North Sea Transition Authority will set out further guidance.

Decisions on funding post March 2025 are a matter for the Budget on October 30th.

We recognise the challenges this brings for some projects. We are working closely with local authorities and key stakeholders to ensure a smooth transition to future funding, so communities continue to benefit from this vital support. In the meantime, officials remain available to discuss any issues impacting delivery.

This information is not held in the format requested.

This information is not held in the format requested.

I am afraid that I do not have that statistic to hand, but I do have some others.

In November 2015, the Government published criteria and guidance for the creation of pooled investment funds in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in England and Wales, to be operational by April 2018. Eight LGPS asset pools have been established to manage the investments of the scheme.

Estimates provided by the LGPS pools indicate that across the scheme, total savings of around £155 million have been achieved over the period from 2015 up to March 2019. The pools have estimated total savings by 2033 at between £1 billion and £2 billion, with annual savings of up to £200 million.

In 2014 and 2015, significant reforms were made to public service pension schemes to address increases in the costs of providing pension benefits to public workers, and to place schemes on a more sustainable and affordable long-term footing. In the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), reforms were implemented from 1^st April 2014 and included moving the scheme from a final salary benefit structure to a career average benefit structure.

In May 2012, the Government published documents (attached)on the planned reforms to the LGPS including a costings analysis from the Government Actuary’s Department (http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2012-1614/Buildupofcostsandcostreconciliationtables-Final.pdf). This analysis outlined that the existing final salary scheme design was estimated to cost in total 21.73% of pay (p2) and the planned career average scheme was estimated to cost in total 19.51% of pay (p3), suggesting an overall saving of just over 2.2% of pay.

To ensure consistency with other public service pension schemes, the final design of the reformed LGPS was changed so that scheme members received revaluation of their in-year accrued pension immediately. This increased the costs of the career average scheme by an estimated 0.4% (see table 7.1 at (attached) http://lgpslibrary.org/assets/othergov/2013VRep.pdf

The Government is currently considering the changes to public service pension schemes which will be necessary to comply with the findings of the Courts in the McCloud and Sargeant cases (https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2019-07-15/HCWS1725/) and these will have cost implications for the reformed scheme.

The template government officials use when completing a regulatory impact assessment for government policy already requires that information is provided to answer the question “what is the CO₂ equivalent change in greenhouse gas emissions” for the respective policy.

This is a matter for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who are operationally independent from Government.

The question has been passed to the FCA, who will reply directly to the Noble Lord by letter. A copy of the letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

Government has undertaken a significant amount of work to assess the economic impacts of leaving the EU. This is part of our continued programme of rigorous and extensive analytical work on a range of scenarios on a sector by sector basis.

Our long-term analysis examined scenarios based on existing alternative models to EU membership. The Prime Minister has since ‎made clear however that the UK aims to agree an ambitious and comprehensive economic partnership with the EU that is of far greater scope and ambition than any existing free trade agreement

The Local Government Pension Scheme is the only major public sector pension scheme which maintains independent investment funds out of which member benefits are paid. Investment decisions are the responsibility of scheme administering authorities.

In addition to the National Army Museum, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) currently supports 69 regimental and corps museums across the UK through a combination of a grant in aid, salary costs, and providing utilities and some support running costs where a museum is located on a MOD site. It is not possible to disaggregate utilities or support costs but the table below shows the details of support provided, by financial year (FY), where available:

Notes:

1. Figures for FY 2016-17 are projected.

2. Salary information is not available for FY 2012-13 to 2014-15.

I refer the noble Lord to the answer given by my hon. Friend, the Minister for Defence Procurement (Harriett Baldwin), in the House of Commons on 17 October 2016 to Question 48369.

The process for leaving the EU and determining our future relationship will be a complex one, so we need to take time to think through our objectives and approach. We want to ensure the best possible outcome for Britain and the future UK-EU relationship. The Prime Minister has also said we would not trigger Article 50 until we have a UK approach and objectives.

Regimental museums are provided and sustained by individual Regiments. However, I understand that the Royal Artillery intends to follow the precedent set by the National Army Museum, which is to close all access to the archives and collections during the transition of the Royal Artillery Museum to a new location. I understand that the Royal Artillery is examining ways to provide some access to a limited selection of archive materials whilst it develops longer term plans.

Such information has only been centrally recorded since February 2012. The number of occasions on which Defence Firefighters have attended accidents on the public highway since 2012 is as follows: